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UK ID card scheme – defeated in the House of Lords
On 17 January 2006, a full House of Lords debated at length the purposes, costs, and details of the proposed identity cards scheme. And in three votes serious obstacles were raised against the Government. The Government contends that the card is essential for combating crime, illegal immigration, and identity theft, and can be achieved for […]
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Urgency procedure for draft French anti-terrorism law
The French government has decided to apply the urgency procedure to a new anti-terrorism draft law, with only one reading by each Chamber. The draft law was already passed by the National Assembly (French Lower House) on 29 November 2005 and will be examined by the French Senate in late December or early January 2006. […]
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Big Brother Awards presented in 4 countries
The sixth edition of Swiss Big Brother Awards ceremony was held in Zurich’s Rote Fabrik on 29 October 2005. The Swiss jury received 100 nominations in four categories: government, business, workplace and the special life-time achievement award. The financial services branch of Swiss Post, Postfinance, was awarded the business award for the illegal transfer of […]
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Very tight vote in UK Lower House on ID card
The UK ID card proposals have come closer than ever to defeat in their final House of Commons vote. The government’s majority shrunk from the previous vote by 11 votes to 25, despite several concessions over cost and claims to improve privacy protection. The legislation now moves to the House of Lords, where it is […]
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NL: 50.000 ID fines in 9 months
Since the introduction of compulsory identification in the Netherlands on January 1st 2005, the police have fined 50.000 people that could or would not present a valid ID. Almost 4.000 of those who were fined were children aged 14 and 15. The statistics are provided by the Central Judicial Collection office. About 25% of the […]
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New Dutch database to create lifetime record for every baby
The Dutch ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport plans to introduce a new electronic file on every new-born, starting in January 2007. The file will contain information about the child, the family situation and its surroundings, later adding educational data, information from social workers and possible police records. The file will be principally maintained by […]
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Germany: biometric passports in November
The German Upper House approved on 8 July the introduction of biometric passports. The ‘ePass’ will contain a contactless chip (RFID) that will hold a digital frontal picture of the bearer’s face. In the future, two fingerprints, one from each hand, will be included – probably starting in 2007. The issuing of the biometric passports […]
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Heated debate on ID cards in the UK
On 28 June the UK government narrowly won a vote on its identity card proposals in the House of Commons, seeing its majority halved to just 31. The previous day the UK Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, expressed strong concerns over the government’s plans for a biometric national identity card and database. He particularly criticised the […]
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French NGOs: no consensus possible on biometric ID-card
A coalition of 6 French organisations against the French biometric card project INES (among them EDRI-member IRIS, see EDRI-gram 3.11) remains convinced that ‘no consensus is possible’ to accept the project if modified according to the suggestions made by the Internet Rights Forum (‘Forum des droits sur l’Internet’ or FDI, a private association mainly funded […]
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French campaign against biometric ID card
In a press conference held on 26 May 2005 in Paris, 6 organisations have launched a campaign against the French project of mandatory biometric ID card. The French Human Rights League (LDH), the union of magistrates, the union of French barristers, EDRI-member IRIS, DELIS (a coalition of more than 60 French NGOs and trade unions […]
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UK ID Card to cost over 435 euro per person
Experts from the London School of Economics have calculated the true cost of the planned ID card in the UK and conclude it will be be three times as high as the government estimates. Introducing the card will cost over 18 billion pounds (26,6 billion euro), or 435 euro per inhabitant of the UK in […]
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Interview with Sergei Smirnov, Human Rights Online Russia
“Do what you must do and let come what may. Due to circumstances like the Putin presidency you can hope and you can make plans, more or less realistic, and work to get closer to your aim and to help people,” that’s the more or less stoic attitude that characterises Sergei Smirnov from the Russian […]
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